1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a configuration for downloading information contents and a program used for materializing the information contents and a processing system for any charge generated in the download.
2. Description of the Related Arts
An advancement of a broadband communication technology in recent years has been facilitating the transmission/reception of information contents of various types (image, music and the like), whose too a large information volume had always been a bottleneck in a communication process. Further, it is now being realized to materialize all of required functions on software using a terminal device in response to an increasingly higher performance achieved in LSI. For example, when image data of MPEG4, which cannot be reproduced when the terminal device is in an initial state, can be reproduced by acquiring a reproduction function (reproduction program) of the MPEG4 in a download process or the like via the internet and installing the function in the terminal device. A part of such an extensible and flexible function-adding configuration is increasingly materialized in the reconfigurable DSP (Digital Signal Processor) and the like. As an example of a conventional technology relating to the present invention can be mentioned an invention relating to a method of distributing software to a terminal recited in U.S. Pat. No. 6,026,366 A of the Publication of the U.S. Patents.
In the function, which is thus optionally addable, various function standards are set in order to realize the function further, it is necessary to obtain a usage license from a management organization in charge of managing the distribution of the function standards in order to realize the function in the terminal device in the case of some of the functions having the function standards. To be specific, the usage license is obtained as a result of paying a usage charge to the management organization.
As the extensibility and flexibility in acquiring the functions are more enhanced, there is a strong demand for building a communication management system for handling transactions of acquiring the information contents and functions. Some functions subjected to the acquisition transactions are obtained based on a license obtained from a third party. For example, there is a license management organization which handles a license for the MPEG4 method used for compression and decoding of a moving image or the like, and an obligation to pay a license fee to them is generated even when a constitution for realizing the function (recording, reproduction and the like) is installed in the terminal device (instrument). If such a function is not installed in the terminal device in a shipment stage, it is a key issue how the license management (management of usage license) should be handled. It is important to carry out the license management because it becomes necessary to include the license fee in a currently available payment method, that is a sales price of the terminal device, if the management of the usage license is not handled in a proper manner, which consequently becomes a large burden for a user purchasing the terminal device in which the targeted function is not installed in the shipment stage and a bender who manufactures and sells the terminal device.